Reviews and review scores can be a contentious issue. Just how important are they for most people, and how do they affect the sales of games at the cash register? Among the weekly top ten titles in Australia, games that PALGN has given average scores to are a consistent presence. Secondly, as reviews are, at least to some extent, a subjective exercise, should reviewers be screened before they even touch a title? For a child's game should publications get a child to review the game? Should a sports nut always be the one to review the latest EA Sports title, and should a female be the reviewer for a game clearly marketed to women?
We decided to check out the opinions of three individuals who belong to demographics that don't necessarily match that of your average critic (non-critic gamer, female gamer, young child) and compare their response to PALGN's review of the title as well as the the average score of the title at Gamerankings.com, a website which catalogues reviews from every major publication.
For our gamer's opinion, we looked to our forums. Through a combination of both reader reviews and forumer opinions, we were able to get an idea on a gamer's opinion of the titles we are looking at here. Our token female is Rebecca, who is 20 years old and generally quite pleased to bowl up a high score in Wii Sports or belt out a tune in one of Sony's Singstar titles. And for the child we turned to Mitchell, a ten year old grade four student who owns both an Xbox and a PlayStation 2. Mitchell is generally quite happy playing either sports titles or racing games which can be played in short bursts.
We asked our participants to play the games and then write a one hundred word review of the games in question and then assign them a score out of ten.
AFL Premiership 2007
AFL Premiership 2007 was released in June, 2007. The series is consistently in the top ten sales charts for Australia and is so popular that Sony purchased exclusivity rights for the series from
AFL Premiership 2006 on. The series is developed in Melbourne by IR Gurus and the
AFL Premiership titles are the only AFL games released. As the game is only available on the PlayStation 2, the reviewers reviewed the game on the PlayStation 2.
PALGN: We weren't a huge fan of
AFL Premiership 2007 when we
reviewed it earlier this year. The game was a little better than its predecessor and could be enjoyable in multiplayer, but just hadn't changed all that much from
AFL Premiership 2006. The game also had a few umpiring bugs, and as this was the 6th AFL title from IR Gurus, we thought the title should have been more polished by now - the commentary in particular became repetitive after about ten minutes.
5.5/10
GAMER: One of PALGN's forumers,
grandtheft88 submitted his own reader review of
AFL Premiership 2007.
Grandtheft88, states that the introduction movie for the game was good, but when it comes to the gameplay it hasn't changed at all.
Grandtheft88 agrees with PALGN's contention that when you're under pressure, it is just about impossible to kick for a goal. He is also able to tolerate the sound but gives a big thumbs down to the graphics and states 'the player animation is slow and clunky and the drop of the football onto the player's boot is not life-like whatsoever. In close, the players look absolutely ludicrous and you quite often see right through them.'
5/10
FEMALE: AFL 2007 is an average video game on the Playstation two. The graphics and sound are good as the players are all labeled and the commentary fits in well. I think that the game is aimed at males as the game is based on football and the majority of males enjoy football whilst many females are not as interested in the sport. As a female I did not enjoy the game, the controls were confusing and the players were all over the place. I had no idea which player I was, even with the little triangles above the player’s heads. Overall the game was not enjoyable and although it looked realistic (which was good) the game was rather boring.
3/10
CHILD: The game AFL 2007 was fun and the game had good graphics and sound. The graphics AFL 2007 are a lot better then the graphics in AFL 2006. One thing I did not like was the controls, for example: when a player grabs the ball and goes to take a shot at goal the game allows other players to tackle too quickly. I liked that I could choose to play a season or grand final game. I enjoyed the game because I like football.
8/10
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was released in May, 2007. The game follows the story of the film and was one of the first movie to game adaptations released for the year. The game is an action adventure title developed by Eurocom and designed to be played by both adults and children. For the critical reviews, we looked at the PlayStation 2 version of the game.
PALGN: Back when we
reviewed the game we were less than impressed.
Pirates main focus is on swordplay but unfortunately, the fighting system ended up feeling repetitive. We found the battles in the game to be boring and worst of all; generic. The game didn't fair any better from
other critics either.
4/10
GAMER: PALGN's forumer,
El Taco, submitted his review for
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and seemed less than impressed. "
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End is the latest (and last) installment of the worldly acclaimed
Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and as today’s trend follows, with every famous movie comes a low-grade game. Games have broken that mold (King Kong and Spiderman 2) but unfortunately this hasn’t. This game tries to be good, but the usual movie game rules apply here, boring missions, check, differs from movie, check, repetitive gameplay, check, other pointless characters, check. This game biggest flaw is the combat. Press Square 3 times and you have killed a man. Apparently when I defend someone with my sword twice, I turn around and stand there for no reason. The graphics are the only redeeming factor of this game, but as we all know, graphics aren’t everything. It’s a miss."
4/10
FEMALE: The graphics in the game are good and the sound is fantastic. The music in the background when a fight is taking place is from the movie adding a dramatic and exciting effect to the game. Story mode is great as you take on the role of Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann and Captain Barbossa as you move through the levels. The controls are easy to understand, making the game easier to play. Overall the game was very enjoyable.
8/10
CHILD: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a good game. It has great graphics and sound. I like the music because it sounds like the music in the movie. The game was exciting as I got to play different characters from the movie and I got to fight. The fights in the game were fun. The game is great for kids and teenagers. The people talking in the dungeons helped me understand what to do next but also added to the graphics. The controls were easy to understand. I did not expect the game to be good but after playing it I really enjoy it.
9/10
Spider-Man 3
Spiderman 3 was released in May, 2007 to coincide with the latest Spidey movie. The game had been in development since its predecessor, the enjoyable
Spider-Man 2, was released. It was released on several platforms including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and the PlayStation 2, but for the reviews we asked our respondents to look at the Xbox 360 version of the game.
PALGN: When we reviewed
Spider-Man 3 back in
May, we were left a little disappointed. All we wanted to see was an improved version of
Spider-Man 2 but Activision shipped the game with a poor camera, boring missions and average controls. The game didn't fare much better with other critics either, with its average ratio on
Gamerankings sitting at 67%.
5.0/10
GAMER: Our forumer,
El Taco, helped out with the review for
Spider-Man 3. "One of the year's biggest sequels, and one of the year's most disappointing games.
Spider-Man 2 the game is regarded as one of the best movie license games, with that behind it how could it go so wrong? Let's see, terrible graphics and bugs, differs way too much from the original story, things have become bland and combat isn't as fun as we remembered. I'm trying to be negative, but there's not a lot of positive to find in this game. Maybe a 5 year old would find it fun, but most gamers these days will breeze it. Not recommended."
4/10
FEMALE: Spider Man 3 is another game that is based on a movie. The graphics were good but the sound and the commentary throughout were disappointing. The commentary made the game boring and there was no background music during fighting scenes. The sound effect when an item blew up was the only exciting sound effect in the game as the controller shock making me feel a part of the game. Overall the game was pretty ordinary.
5/10
CHILD: Spider-Man 3 is a very ordinary game. The graphics and sound in the game was not as good as the sound and graphics in
Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought that I was going to enjoy the game but it ended up being very disappointing. The game was boring. Overall the game was disappointing and was ordinary. Even though the game had a person talking throughout it I still did not always understand what I had to do next in the game.
3/10
So there we have it. Our humble little piece on how three games can be received similarly or differently by different people.
PALGN would like to thank forum users grandtheft88 and El Taco as well as Rebecca and Mitchell for their participation in this feature. We'd also like to thank the several people who suggested this feature including Kashmere from our forums and Michael Thomas. Please note the image for Mitchell is a cartoon and not Mitchell.
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